A REPORT OF THE RESOURCE ALLOCATION COMMITTEE December 14, 1993 During November, the Resource Allocation Committee ("RAC") met in Chicago to act on a number of proposals it received from the research and education ("R&E") community seeking funds from those accumulated in the Infrastructure Pool. The following summary of the RAC actions is being released to the general Internet Community. RECENT DECISIONS To facilitate decision-making with regard to the distribution of Pool funds, the RAC found it necessary to define the term "infrastructure". The members adopted the definition of infrastructure as including: physical components, software and tools, programmatic elements, and human resource components which support the R&E mission of the NSFNET program. The RAC believes this definition of infrastructure is consistent with the High Performance Computing & Communications legislation, the pending National Information Infrastructure bills, and the Clinton Administration's vision as defined in "The National Information Infrastructure: Agenda for Action" released in September 1993. After reviewing and discussing several proposals, the RAC approved two proposals to receive Pool funds: The first is entitled "Inter-Regional Problem Tracking and Reporting", submitted by William Yundt, Director Networking & Communication Systems at Stanford University and Executive Director of BARRNet, the Bay Area Regional Research Network. The proposal will provide for a common trouble ticketing system for use by all RAC members. Such a commonly used tool is expected to offer a fundamental improvement for the Internet/ NSFNET by increasing the service consistency and coherence of the overall R&E networking enterprise. It also seeks to improve the responsiveness of widely distributed and differing network operations in reporting and resolving problems and making problem state information consistent and available throughout the network. A second, entitled "Bits and Mortar: Building the Information Infrastructure for Health Care", submitted by Laura Breeden, Executive Director of FARNET, the Federation of American Research Networks and Eric Hood, President of FARNET and Executive Director and CEO of NorthWestNet. The proposal will bring national leaders from the medical research, academic, and clinical health care community together with Internet service providers, government agency representatives, developers of software and services, and medical instrument vendors. The representatives attending the workshop will be those who must cooperate to create a telecommunications infrastructure for medical and life science researchers and clincial health care providers. There is also an expectation that our nation's citizens will use networks to better educate themselves about their health. The workshop discussions will focus on practical, near-term uses for Internet-based technology in the conduct of health and life sciences research and in the delivery of health care and patient information. Such a workshop is expected to play a catalytic role for Internet service providers by affording them the opportunity to learn about the network infrastructure, capacity requirements, and service demands that will be placed on their networks to support bursty image traffic, transport of sensitive or proprietary data, and other life science applications and services. BACKGROUND Representatives of a majority of Regional Networks and ANS CO+RE Systems, Inc. ("ANS CO+RE"), agreed that they would contribute to an Infrastructure Pool a portion of the fees that they collected from entities (a) to whom they provide network attachments, and (b) that did not agree to comply with a Research and Education Acceptable Use Policy (e.g., the AUP of ANS or NSF). It was agreed that the funds in the Infrastructure Pool would be used to improve the infrastructure of ANS and the Regional Networks under the direction of a committee (the Resource Allocation Committee). The basic objective of the Infrastructure Pool and the RAC was "to ensure that ANS, ANS CO+RE, and the participating networks receive sufficient funds to cover the costs of handling traffic exchanges with commercial subscribers." In these Agreements, the RAC is given broad authority to set the criteria and processes for distribution of the fund. The National Science Foundation ("NSF") was kept apprised of the various discussions and agreements by which the Infrastructure Pool and the RAC were conceived and implemented. The NSF is a non-voting member of the RAC. The current members of the RAC are: Eric Aupperle, Merit, Inc. James Luckett, NYSERNet Guy Almes, ANS Maurice Mitchell, NevadaNet Thomas Bajzek, PREPnet Jeffrey Ogden, MichNet Alison Brown, OARnet Glenn Ricart, SURAnet Patrick Burns, WestNet John Rugo, NEARnet Dennis Fazio, MRNet Thomas Sandoski, Concert Douglas Gale, MIDnet Michael Staman, CICnet Farrell Gerbode, Sesquinet William Yundt, BARRNet Eric Hood, NorthWestNet NSF Representative Further questions and comments can be referred to: Peter O'Neil Chair, Resource Allocation Committee 914.789.5329 oneil@ans.net